Royal Caribbean Vacation Planner and Husband Arrested For Burglarizing 24 Homes While Residents Were On Cruises

The Palm Beach Post reports today that the Palm Beach Sheriff’s Office arrested a Royal Caribbean "vacation planer" who broke into cruise passenger’s homes with her husband while the families were away on Royal Caribbean cruise vacations.

Bethsaida Sandoval, described by the newspaper as a 38-year-old vacation planner for Royal Caribbean cruise lines, used her work database to find her victims’ addresses.

Police arrested Sandoval and her husband, John Lopez, on charges of armed burglary and burglary after the police determined that they were involved in breaking into 24 houses throughout South Florida.

The Palm Beach Post reports that Sandoval "gathered her victims’ addresses from other vacation planner’s files. She looked in the Royal Caribbean computer system for potential victims by entering the ship’s departure date, city name and phone number. She took that information and shared it with her husband and accomplices."

According to CBS 4’s article "Cruise Worker Sent Crooks to Cruiser’s Homes," an arrest affidavit filed by investigators said Sandoval was seen on surveillance entering Royal Caribbean offices at about 1 a.m. several times in the past month, using her employee ID to get access to a computer where she would log in.

Royal Caribbean has won our "Worst Cruise Line In The World" award several times. This one takes the cake.

Royal Caribbean PR department is trying to distance itself from this embarrassment by stating that the cruise line fired Sandoval. USA Today published the cruise line’s PR statement, claiming that Ms. Sandoval was a "former employee." Some news stations like WSVN TV-7 are already referring to her as an "ex-employee" who committed the burglaries, which is not true.

If Sandoval was an "ex-employee" this makes the situation worse. She had unfettered access to the complete passenger manifest at the cruise line’s headquarters late at night. She would have used her vendor badge to enter the parking lot and the cruise line’s offices! This situation demonstrates a very lax security situation at this cruise line.

As usual, Royal Caribbean did not respond to a request for a comment from Cruise Law News (CLN). This is one of the most evasive cruise lines in the world.

Goes to show you that not many thieves are masterminds. Duh, who do they think would be suspected in this ring? Like they say ‘Here’s your sign..’!

Now, they need to seize all of their assets, from their homes, cars and furniture down to their last pair of undies. Sell what they can and give that to victims and burn the rest. So that they know what it is to lose something. Then they need to lock them up just until arthritis kicks in and release them to work manual jobs until their backs break.

As for the cruise line, anyone who had control over this employee should be fired. It is up to management to control those under them. And the buck should stop with management.

What a horrible story. As cruise specialits ourselves, each of our consultants pride themselves on the special relationships they build up over the years with their clients. Clients put their trust in you, come to you for advice and loyally come back to you to book second, third and fourth cruises. And this is how one agent repays this loyalty?! It is sickening. We hope this nasty news doesn’t taint the cruise industry. Most people in the world are decent people

Margarette

I live in Miami; my Christmas gift to my family was a cruise on Royal Caribbean, Majesty of the Seas. We were out only 2 days and 2 nights. We were robbed the first night at 1:30 am.

Hope they rot in prison

This MONSTER goes on trial Monday January 30th in Palm Beach County for the PAIN and VIOLATION she and her career criminal spouse caused many families. These families lost highly sentimental and valuable items, many that cannot be replaced. The duo has also raped these families of the ability to feel “safe” at home. The media needs to attend this trial in mass and remind consumers of yet another risk they face when deciding to go “cruising.” Royal Caribbean needs to step up to the plate, take responsibility for their INactions, and give restitution for their negligiance of allowing their security to be infiltrated in the middle of the night by this sick individual posing as an agent there to book the vacation of a lifetime.

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“Everything the cruise lines don’t want you to know” is the motto of this award winning maritime law blog authored by Miami lawyer Jim Walker. More…

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Cruise ship accidents, injuries, crimes, disappearances, fires, and collisions on the high seas involve issues of maritime law. Jim Walker graduated from law school in 1983 and has been handling maritime law cases for the past thirty-five years. He handles a wide variety of cases from serious injuries to the highest profile sexual assault and cruise crime cases.